Energetic, exergetic, economic, and environmental analysis of microchannel membrane-based absorption refrigeration system driven by various energy sources

Microchannel membrane-based absorption refrigeration system (MMARS) shows its advantages in efficiency and compactness over the conventional absorption refrigeration systems. This paper investigates the MMARS driven by three energy sources, namely natural gas heater, electric heater, and evacuated tube solar collector, in terms of energy, exergy, economy, and environment. Under a targeted cooling capacity of 2.5 kW, MMARS improves the coefficient of performance (COP) and volumetric cooling capacity (q_v) respectively by 11.7% and 119.6% compared to the horizontal falling-film system. A thorough exergy analysis shows that the largest exergy destruction rates are produced by desorber (38.27%), absorber (25.03%), and solution heat exchanger (14.12%). Economic analysis indicates that if the initial cost of the solar collector is reduced by 50%, the solar-driven MMARS will perform the best in levelized cooling capacity cost (LCC) with a lifetime above 12 years. The environmental analysis presents that the solar-driven MMARS produces the smallest levelized cooling capacity equivalent CO₂ emission (LCCE) among all the refrigeration systems, which alleviates the environmental impact on the user side. Therefore, the solar-driven MMARS is a potential system to achieve carbon neutrality in the refrigeration field.